There is no doubt that the U.S. is a major power and will remain one in the foreseeable future but other societies are forging ahead and restricting the relative power and therefore leadership of America.
Why exactly is Iran regarded as such a colossal threat? The question is rarely discussed, but it is not hard to find a serious answer -- though not, as usual, in the fevered pronouncements.
Dr. Ferguson's theme isn't new. Root causes of the rise and fall of western civilizations were earlier explored by UCLA Professor Jared Diamond in his books Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Collapse in far more convincing fashion.
Have you noticed how repetitiously our president and others insist that we are "the greatest nation on Earth"? When the U.S. was actually "the greatest," no one needed to say it over and over again.
It's actually going to feel better to be just another nation, one more country, even if a large and powerful one, on this overcrowded planet, rather than the nation.
Among foreign policy mandarins here and abroad, it's become axiomatic that America must radically downsize its global ambitions to avoid hubris and to match our straitened economic circumstances. Hillary Clinton is having none of it.
